


The Ted Termination

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: First Misses [20]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 08:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: We’ve got some tricky letters coming up...





	The Ted Termination

“Another cup of tea, Robin?”

Robin smiled. “That would be lovely, thank you,” she said. She and Strike’s aunt Joan were sat at the kitchen table of the house in the village just outside St Mawes where Strike had spent large chunks of his childhood. Strike himself was outside, smoking and being shown the vegetable garden by his uncle Ted.

“So how did this morning’s interview go?” Joan asked conversationally, pouring more tea from the big, solid teapot.

“Okay, I think,” Robin said. “Pretty sure this one was innocent, but it’s so hard to tell. I guess a good actor could fake outrage well enough.”

She and Strike had been in St Ives interviewing artists whose works had been used as covers to smuggle stolen paintings abroad. It was suspected that some of the artists were in on the scheme; the agency’s job was to try to work out who was a co-conspirator and who was an innocent victim.

Joan nodded sagely, setting Robin’s mug back in front of her. “I would imagine so. Will you stay for lunch?”

Robin hesitated. “You’ll have to ask Cormoran,” she said. “I know he wants to get back to London today, and it’s quite a drive.”

“It certainly is. We take the train these days.”

Strike and Ted came back into the kitchen, stamping mud off their feet. They were both big men with military backgrounds; they filled the little kitchen with their presence. Robin loved how similar Strike was to his big uncle. Ted’s hair wasn’t curly, but it was as thick and unruly as his nephew’s, albeit almost totally grey now.

Ted grinned at his wife. “Cormoran says the garden’s looking good,” he said. “Not bad for an old man, eh? Remember when you used to come down and help me dig it?”

“I do,” Strike said, grinning. “I can’t believe you’re still doing it yourself, must be some local lad you could get to help.”

Robin buried a giggle in her cup of tea, which Strike didn’t miss. He glanced at her curiously, his eyebrows raised. Robin carefully didn’t meet his gaze.

“Will you stay for lunch?” Joan asked.

Strike glanced at Robin again and she nodded. “Thanks, that’d be great,” he told his aunt. “I’d like to be back on the road by two, get back to London by seven or eight.” He frowned a little as Robin hid her face in her mug again.

“Wonderful,” Joan replied. “I’ll do some sandwiches. Ted, could you fetch some tomatoes from the greenhouse?”

Ted nodded. “Will do,” he said, heading back out of the door.

Joan shooed Strike and Robin away. “Go and sit down, have a rest,” she said. “Long drive ahead of you. I’ll bring lunch.”

They moved obediently through to the little lounge. Strike nudged Robin’s shoulder with his. “Why all the smirking?” he asked in a low, amused voice.

“Oh...” Robin grinned. “I’m not trying to be mean. But your accent—”

“What about it?” Strike settled himself on the sofa, and Robin sat next to him. The chair in front of the television she assumed was Ted’s, and the other chair had a book laid on it that was presumably Joan’s.

“You just sound so...Cornish when you talk to your uncle.”

“And you sound really Yorkshire when you talk to your dad, but I didn’t laugh at you.”

“I wasn’t laughing. Much.”

Strike rolled his eyes a little. “I had a much stronger accent in my childhood,” he said. “But people do tend to laugh at you in the rest of the country, so I soon dropped it when I left.”

“I can hear it a little, in your vowels,” Robin said.

“Yeah, hence being called Oggy everywhere,” Strike said cheerfully. “It’s cooler to have a northern accent, I guess. Or at least, people laugh at you less.”

Robin giggled. “I’m not laughing at you, I promise,” she said. “I just like it. It’s...” she trailed off. _Cute_ wasn’t really the right word. It was kind of sexy, but she couldn’t say that either. “I like it,” she repeated, lamely.

“You think it’s funny.”

“I wasn’t laughing!” Robin protested again.

“You were. That was a full-blown snigger you had going on there.”

“Do you think I don’t notice you smiling at my accent when I’m cross?”

Strike grinned. “Thought I'd been more subtle.”

“You haven’t. I’m aware.” She smiled at him to show she didn’t really mind.

“You do sound much more northern when you’re angry. I...like it.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Let’s just agree we like each other’s accents,” she said. Strike nodded.

They sat for a moment in quiet. The cosy living room was warm and welcoming. Robin could see why Strike loved coming here so, why he seemed so at home here. It was interesting to see him in his home environment, so different from bustling London, though he seemed at home there too. But here he just seemed to belong.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“I was just thinking how you fit, down here. It’s obviously home to you.”

“Like Yorkshire is to you.”

“Yeah.”

He was smiling fondly at her, and she grinned back at him. He was relaxed, lounging back against the sofa back, one arm spread along towards her so that his hand was actually quite close to her shoulder. Robin idly wondered if he had any idea how attractive he was when he was like this, laid-back and happy. For a moment her mind wandered, imagining leaning in to his arm, laying her head on his shoulder.

“Another penny for your thoughts?”

Robin flushed. She couldn’t tell him what she’d been thinking this time.

Strike watched the blush steal across her cheeks, intrigued. He’d assumed it would be something else about accents, or home, but suddenly she looked flustered, as though she had been thinking something she shouldn’t. Thoughts that might be very similar to those that had plagued him since they arrived in Cornwall. There was something about being here in his home county with her that made him feel closer to her somehow. He’d felt it in Yorkshire, too.

“Robin?” His voice was quiet.

“I—” _Think of something! _But her mind was blank, his proximity and quizzical look throwing her off balance. He sat forward a little, and Robin could suddenly see clearly the sprinkling of freckles across his face, the hints of grey in his stubble. She couldn’t look away.

Strike had stopped smiling. His eyes on hers, questioning, he leaned towards her slowly.

The door opened suddenly and they both jumped. Flushing guilty, Robin sat back. Strike leaned back again too, pulling his arm away from where it was extended towards her along the back of the sofa.

“Look what I found.” Ted entered the room, grinning. He was holding a photograph in one hand, which he passed to Robin.

She glanced down at it, and squealed a little. “Aww!”

“Oh, God, I know exactly which picture that is,” Strike grumbled darkly. “Every bloody time.”

The picture in Robin’s hand clearly showed Strike as a little boy on the beach. He wore shorts and a striped T-shirt, grinning at the camera as he flourished a bucket and spade. It was so clearly him, with his dark eyes and big grin, his curly hair tumbling to his shoulders.

“Wow, look at your hair!” Robin cried softly.

“Yeah, Mum didn’t take me for a haircut till I went to school,” Strike said, spots of colour on his cheeks. “She loved my hair.”

Robin carried on looking at the picture, unable to meet his gaze or look at his flushed cheeks, trying to hide her own fluster and get her pounding heart back under control. For a minute it had felt like— And he looked flustered too, but that was surely just because of the picture...

“Lunch is ready,” Joan called from the kitchen.

Relieved, Strike scrambled to his feet. “Excellent,” he said. “Let’s eat, and then we can get back on the road.”

Robin nodded. She laid the picture on the arm of the sofa and stood too and followed him back through to the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> We’ve got some tricky letters coming up...


End file.
